In the travel industry, data filing systems deal with the filing and the storing of data related to products such as travel and associated products and services. For example, filing systems provide pricing engines with such data for producing a specific fare for a specific trip.
Nowadays, two categories of data filing systems exist. Fare providers such as Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCo) and Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA) provide a first category of data filing system called an institutional filing system. Each airline can send standard data related to standard products to the institutional filing system such as fares, rules and branded fares. Travel providers provide a second category of data filing system called a proprietary filing system. Some proprietary filing systems also receive standard data transmitted by the institutional filing system several times per day. The latest transmission of a given standard data relates to the current version of this standard data to be used by the proprietary filing system for producing an up to date airfare data related to standard products. In addition to the standard data, the proprietary filing system can also provide additional functionalities to allow airlines or travel agencies to add specific data to their standard data to extend the content of the corresponding standard product. Specific data may for instance relate to dynamic discounted fares or baggage.
However, in the current process, the airline must determine an efficient strategy for filing data. The airline can either exclusively use the institutional filing system to benefit from the wide data distribution system of the institutional filing system; or exclusively use the proprietary filing system to benefit from the additional functionalities and features of the proprietary filing system; or to use both institutional and proprietary filing systems which require filing the standard data twice. The standard data is not currently shared between the institutional filing system and the proprietary filing system. The airline must file the standard data a first time in the institutional filing system, and a second time in the proprietary filing system to benefit from any additional features.
This process has many inconveniences. To send duplicates of the standard data may give rise to errors when entering data in the proprietary filing system. In addition, sending duplicates may also cause an increasing amount of transmitted data on the corresponding transmission networks between airlines and proprietary filing systems. In addition, if airlines need to amend standard data, airlines have to process amendments in both the institutional filing system and the corresponding proprietary filing systems, which is highly time consuming.